Dunbar had just climbed in behind Gaston Max. Bother were all but hurled from their feet by the force of the explosion. Then:
"Oh, my God!" cried Dunbar, staggering, half blinded, "look—look!"
A deathly silence claimed them all. Just within the doorway Stuart appeared, having his arm about the shoulders of Miska.
The Throne of the Gods was empty! A thin coating of grey dust was settling upon it and upon the dais which supported it.
They had witnessed a scientific miracle … the complete and instantaneous disintegration of a human body. Gaston Max was the first to recover speech.
"We are defeated," he said. "'The Scorpion,' surrounded, destroys himself. It is the way of a scorpion."